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selected news releases for today's health care executives

HealthcareWebSummit: Managing patient security and privacy on a new data-sharing playground

Digital health is becoming both a data-sharing playground and a minefield of concerns. Data is quickly becoming one of the health industry’s most treasured commodities. The United States is embarking on the largest investment in health information technology (IT) ever with high hopes of improving patient outcomes, quality, and costs. New data assets, care approaches, and payment models are on the horizon, generating an explosion of information collection, exchange, and use in the industry.

Yet, health organizations are acutely aware that sensitive data can be easily compromised. In just the last year and a half, a breach of personal health information occurred, on average, every other day. Breaches erode productivity and patient trust. They’re costly, unpredictable, and unfortunately quite common. More than half of healthcare organizations surveyed by PwC have had at least one privacy/security-related issue in the last two years.

On one hand, the government is encouraging organizations to share data more broadly to improve outcomes, but at the same time imposing larger penalties for improper disclosures. As a converging industry moves quickly to tap the torrents of new electronic data available, PwC’s Health Research Institute (HRI) found that the challenges are complex, but manageable. Join PwC's Sarah Haflett, as she presents findings and insights from 2011 HRI research encompassing a survey of more than 600 provider, health insurer, and pharmaceutical/life sciences professionals on the privacy and security implications of the explosion of new data sources and uses in the healthcare industry; and interviews of 25 chief privacy officers (CPOs), chief information security officers (CISOs), chief information officers (CIOs), and other executives of healthcare organizations.

Participants will be able to:

Consider privacy/security issues experienced by healthcare organizations over the last two years
Understand the top security challenges by health sector
Examine the extent and implications of external data sharing and secondary data use
Identify privacy and security challenges for secondary data use
Ascertain how healthcare organizations are ensuring business associates can be trusted with patient health information
Explore the extent to which organizations have developed integrated approaches/frameworks that combine compliance, privacy/data usage, security, and ID theft, and the benefits derived from this approach
Engage in interactive learning through online question submission, attendee feedback and opportunity for follow up questions, and networking with attendees, faculty and other professionals through dedicated LinkedIn group